A neophyte shottist's exploration and exercise.... Read by dozens daily

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Quarantine

Survival.

Here is a “what if?” to ponder. Let’s say a virulent disease cropped up, and the wisest response was to quarantine the region/nation. Everyone was to remain in their homes. It’s the only way to stop the spread

Gov’t types in NBC suits would patrol outside, and you’d be perfectly safe from them. Unless you stepped outside.

Your stocks of ammo won’t even be touched. All your guns are nice to have, but not needed. The quarantine starts now, and lasts until Groundhog Day. Yes, 90 days.

Electricity, water, and gas supplies will be sporadic. For instance: the water may go off on day 2 and never come back, or it may stay on a week, and go off a week, that sort of thing. Sewage is not a problem. It may go to the river untreated, but we can worry about that later.

What’s the first thing you are going to run out of?

For me, it’ll be toilet paper. Unless I can sneak to Archie’s house. He has a closet FULL of boxes of Kleenex.

Water would be addressed with a full bathtub on the first day, topping it off whenever the water supply returned. If it returned. My hot water heater is also a supply of water. And if I have warning to fill the tub then I have the ability to fill everything in the house that holds water. So water might not be a problem. For drinking. I'd need about 90 gallons to survive. If I want to flush the terlet, I'll need 300. I don't have 6 55 gallon drums of water sitting around. Or just one to catch rainwater, even.

Fuel will be a problem. I have plenty of scrap wood for cooking fires, but it will be in the winter. And my house has no fireplace. If I didn’t have to step onto the back porch I’d survive the low temps easily. But dried peas, beans, and rice needs cooking. I'll get hungry if I can't cook. I'll get thirsty if I have to boil my water.

8 comments:

Boat Guy
said...

There are some pretty nifty smaller (and larger) water tanks available, a 250 gal fits in the basement utility room quite nicely. A backpack stove such as the MSR Whisperlite burns lots of different fuels, boils water quickly and doesn't burn a bunch of fuel doing it. The good folks at REI will even teahc you to use it.As for TP, well there's always phone books...me, I prefer to stock up. As one of my DI's put it long ago in desribing essential consumeables; "Ammo, water and sh*t paper hogs - everything else is negotiable"

One of the minor advantages to using stored fuels is just that.. they're stored. We cook with propane, and our 100-gallon tank should last us about 16 months. It gets topped off every 6-8 months.

I buy TP by the case whenever it goes on sale and tuck it into wherever I can find space.

We have a creek just below us that would be potable by filtering/boiling. Plenty of food on hand. (Yes, ninety days. We might get skinny and bored with what we've got, but we wouldn't starve.)

Our biggest problem? Heat. We'd have to consolidate to one room in the house and insulate the hell out of it. We use a coal stoker stove for our primary winter heat, and that needs 200W of steady 120VAC to run. The genset can run it easily, but we only keep 40-50gal of gas on hand, which is about a week of 24/7 running.

Careful charging cycles on car batteries and using an inverter *might* stretch that to 3-4 weeks worth of fuel, but it'd be dicey.

T-Bolt my friend, there is a multimillion dollar industry dedicated to the Preparedness/Survivalist community. But like the Gunnie World, they run the gamut from the Bare Minimalist of a trailer on Junk Land in the Desert (Jim Dakin's Bison site) to the Mini Fortress in the Mountains (Jim Rawles Survival Blog). If you are serious, I'd go to Survival Blog, peruse his archives, then go to his links page and check out Mike Creekmore's Survivalist Blog, Jim Dakin's Bison site, and the SHTF Blog (Ranger Man's place). Ranger Man had a post on Water Storage just a few days ago, and I wrote up how I'm storing water at my place. Also, you have in your neighborhood a gentleman who writes as the Suburban Survivalist, you might want to check him out.

Be prepared, though, to do a lot of serious filtering through your brain. There are some sites out there where one could say "Is this an Apocalyptic Cult?"to those that are just disguised Nazi Skinheads meeting places to those that have nice ladies talking about how their little farm is doing on a day to day basis.

But the way this world is going, I'm a strong believer that the more everyone is Prepared, the better it'll be for those of us who have to live through it.

Matter of fact, our Hosts for the Northcoast Blogshoot Heath and Amanda are very well Prepared. I had a nice talk with Heath on his plans, and I must admit, am a little jealous. You might want to talk to them for more info.

I just moved into an apartment. I'm effectively screwed. If my roomie and I went on a starvation diet would could probably last four weeks (and that is not worrying about water). I guess the easiest way to start off would be to divide all the food into 90 piles as equal as possible.

But roomie and I earned our Ranger tabs, so we know what it is like to starve. Don't ever want to starve again though.

However if I was with my wife at our house, we would be fine. Plenty of food, and plenty of water, plenty of firewood to cook with. Not bad for living on a quarter acre in the 'burbs.

Good Advice

"You never select a shotgun as your primary anti-zombie firearm. It's great for onesy twosey, but zombies travel in hordes. The reload time is onerous, and the ammo, while effective, is heavy and bulky and short ranged."

Big Mistake for Her

If Ginsberg had let Scalia put the words "strict scrutiny" in Heller and Hillary said "Gun control is just not going to be a priority for my administration," Hillary would have been elected President.

About Me

Preamble

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.